All 4 One
by creatorx2
Summary: Four U.S. soldiers answer a call for help during the zombie invasion. During their odyssey, they learn about each other and the human nature that unites us all. KIDDING. Lots of violence and blowing up zombies. Takes place in the Left4Dead apocalypse. R
1. A Girl's Trust

**Chapter 1 – Losing a Girl's Trust**

EXT. SUMMER CAMP – DAY

I watched as the others fell, confident, and were caught. I outstretched my arms. My feet braced for impact, but as she fell, I felt a wave of nausea pass over me. I watched as my arms lost solidity, and she kept on falling, straight through me, as if I didn't exist.

And the serene face of confidence never left her until the second her head hit the ground.

Her eyes snapped open. Blood pooled at my feet. As my shoes grew steadily more red, strong arms brought forth a stretcher. Then the stretcher left, but with her bleeding head resting on the cushion.

Her gaze never left mine. And every moment I gazed back, the hatred pushed my eyes away.

I turned to see a punch aimed at my face. Closing my eyes, I prayed for the immaterial that had injured the girl. It never came.

I jolted awake. Breathing a sigh of relief, I realized I wasn't at a summer camp, losing a girl's trust. I was in the middle of the apocalypse.

INT. FORT FREEDOM – NIGHT

I realized what had woke me up. It wasn't my alarm, as I was expecting, but rather I had left my walkie-talkie on, and someone was prank-calling me. I picked it up. "What!?"

"Marsh, Sarge wants to see you."

"Why?"

"We got a call."

My eyes widened. This wasn't a prank. Getting a call is too important. I grabbed my hat, turned off the walkie-talkie, and bolted out the door.

My mistake was that, in my haste, I never bothered to take a look around. Had I had done so, I might have noticed a peculiar swarming of bugs on a tree branch over the side of the high chain-link fence.

My feet hit the ground, left, right, left, right, left, and the I felt a slimy grip on my leg. Within seconds, I was being pulled along the ground, and then slowly up the side of the fence. I tried desperately to unwrap myself before I was exposed to the deadly barbed wire at the top. The tongue slipped under my hands.

The Smoker exploded into a cloud of dust. I fell headfirst into the mud. I groaned as I realized who had killed it.

"Marsh, ol' boy, you owe me fifty bucks. That's the third one."

I peeled my face out of the dirt. "That doesn't count."

Jeff knelt over, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to my feet. "We agreed, three saves, fifty bucks. Fork it over."

"Yeah, well, they're not supposed to be able to get us here."

"Doesn't matter."

"I didn't exactly drag my money into the mud with me. You're gonna have to wait."

"How about I wait at Sarge's tent?"

"Why?"

"Cause that's where we need to be."

I cleared my head. "Oh yeah."

After a moment's glance, we sprinted towards the tent.

Too late, Simon and Greg had already beaten us. I trained my eye to Sarge, awaiting an explanation as to why us four had been called here at three in the morning.

There was an awkward silence. I looked quizzically around the room for a few moments before I realized everyone was staring at me.

"What happened to you?" asked Simon.

I duly noted the mud that I had been dragged through still pined for the pleasure of my company. "Oh...a smoker got me."

Simon nodded. "Ah."

"Wait," replied Greg, "What? I thought—"

"It climbed a tree."

"Oh. Didn't think they could do that."

Sarge cleared his throat. Greg became alert again. "Sorry, Sarge."

"Yeah," Sarge said. "Anyway, we just got a call."

"From where?" asked Jeff.

"The cornfield. There's four of them. They have weapons and supplies, but not enough to last more than a few more days. They say they're part of a police force."

"Well, that's good," I commented. "At least they're not just a ragtag group. We could use them in this base."

"Are we sure we aren't just harvesting blood? What if we get there and they're all deader than the zombies feasting on their corpses?"

"Zombies aren't dead, technically, and they don't feast on the people they've killed, Jeff."

"Shut up, Marsh. You know what I mean."

"It's worth a shot to go, though. What can we gain from standing around?"

"I know, just this could turn out to be a suicide mission."

"Everything's a suicide mission. Life's a suicide mission."

"Not for a zombie."

"Unless it happens to come within a mile of us."

Sarge became impatient. "Shut up, you two. You're like an old married couple. Simon, start gathering ammo and supplies and dump it in our transport. You too, Greg, don't just stand there."

We all hurried off to prepare for the journey. Sarge held me back as I was exiting the tent, however.

"Marsh?"

"Yessir?"

"You got hit by a smoker on the way to this meeting?"

"It climbed a tree, sir."

"Right, I'll tell the troops to watch for that."

"Good idea, sir."

"Oh, and one more thing, Marsh."

"Yes?"

"I always loved you."

"Excuse me?"

The Sarge laughed. "Kidding. You just seem so uptight."

"It's three in the morning."

"I see that. Oh yeah, and Dr. Sleighter requests he join this mission."

"What!?"

"He says he needs to see the zombies up close in order to study them properly."

"But—"

"I agreed. He's coming."

"What about you, sir?"

"Someone needs to run this base. Good luck, Marsh."

"Good luck keeping the mud off the ground without me." I flicked some dirt off and left.


	2. Fire Demon

EXT. FORT FREEDOM – NIGHT

We lovingly called our transport "The Tank", mostly for its ability to drive through a horde with little trouble. It really had no firing mechanism of its own, though, so we installed our own mounted machine guns over the course of a weekend.

It also came equipped with a huge amount of storage space. We used this for ammo, first aid, food, and pain pills. Mostly ammo, though.

With our transport, we could survive for weeks on our own. It was like a mobile base.

No substitute for a real one, unfortunately. In Fort Freedom, we had survived for nearly a month, and it was estimated we could last another year and a half with the supplies we have now.

We have so much because before the apocalypse, it was a huge military training ground, holding at least two thousand people, and planned to keep them self-contained for a month. Now there are twenty of us, fifteen who came to the base after about two weeks. Jeff and I were two of the original five. Simon, Greg, and the Sarge all came with the second group. Sarge, realizing he was the highest ranking officer alive, took immediate charge.

First order of business: Set up every method of communication that we can. Early on, a radio jamming sequence was sent out, courtesy of Dr. Sleighter, that jammed all radios into a U.S. army loop, and set them all to our channel. If anyone found any working radio with in a fifty-mile radius, they could call us. This was our first.

So, here we were, speeding off in our own private little Tank, off to play the big hero and rescue the damsel in distress. And the first few hours, we loved every second of it.

Simon drove. Simon always drives. I don't envy him. Up here, on the top with our three mounted turrets, it's just pure fun.

We hadn't seen any zombies for a while. Jeff, from his seat up on the front roof, turned away from his minigun and leaned against it, letting the wind fly through his hair. "So," he lamented thoughtfully, "you guys know any nice places to eat?"

"Jeff," I said, "we're in the middle of a forest."

"Yeah, and even if there was one, I bet the service is terrible," laughed Greg.

"Oh, I know! The waiters would just scream unintelligible shit at you and then try to beat your face in."

"Maybe they should try hiring actual people instead of zombies."

"Hell, zombies are cheaper. They work for brains."

"And they don't demand health care or dental shit or all that!"

"But they're pretty much unionized."  
" Ha! 'Hey, these working conditions are unfair. You wanna go on strike?' "

" 'No, that's too organized. Let's beat the manager until he stops moving!' "

We all laughed heartily.

Then the truck ran over a boomer.

Jeff got slime in his eyes. "Ah, shit-" he stuttered, and then the horde came in. Greg and I fired our miniguns from the back, but the guns couldn't reach in places where Jeff's could from his position, and he couldn't see a thing.

Thinking fast, I grabbed an assault rifle, abandoned my turret, climbed up to Jeff's turret, and unloaded several clips into the horde until he was able to wipe the goop out of his eyes. I hopped back, grabbed a blinker, and tossed it far away from the vehicle. As the horde cleared away to follow it, we breathed a sigh of relief.

"That actually went pretty well," Greg commented.

"Sorry, Marsh, that was my fault. I should've been paying attention."

"Hey, it was a chance to demonstrate my awesomeness. Does this mean the fifty bucks I owe you is off?"

"Hell no. You got it with you?"

"Sorry, mate, gonna have to wait 'til we get back."

"Damn."

"Sucks to be you."

"You know what also sucks?"

"What?"

"It's the end of the world...as we know it."

My eyes lit up. " It's the…end of the world as we know it! "

Greg joined in. " It's the…end of the world as we know it! "

All three of us sang out, " And IIII FEEEL FIIIINE! "

Jeff launched into a verse: " Six o'clock, TV Hour, don't get caught in a foreign tower, slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn, lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting, every motive escalate, automotive incinerate, light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down, watch a heel crush, crush, uh-oh, this means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steer clear, a tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies, offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT! "

Greg stared in awe. "How'd you remember all that?"

"I'm just gifted." He continued, "It's the…end of the world as we HOLY SHIT A TANK."

We all looked backwards and saw it racing towards us as fast as its arms could fling it.

I grabbed a grenade. "We gonna fire-bomb him?"

"Hell yeah."

I tossed it, a perfect throw, hitting the tank square in the face. A pillar of fire erupted around it. The Tank emerged from the flames and kept on running towards us. We fired no guns. After a few moments its legs gave way and it collapsed, dying, onto the road.

"That was easy," Greg noted.

"Yeah. We can thank Dr. Sleighter for the grenade," Jeff responded.

"How many of 'em we got?"

"Enough."

"That's good."

"Yep."

"So…what is it, exactly?"

"It's an incendiary grenade. Instead of exploding, it bursts into a pillar of fire and burns everything in its blast radius to death."

"Why doesn't it just explode?"

"Because I've seen Tanks survive that. Being on fire, now that can kill it."

"I hate Tanks."

"We all do."

There was an awkward silence. Suddenly Dr. Sleighter poked his head out of the man-hole connecting the inside of the truck to the roof. "Simon says it's time for a shift change." We all laughed. Sleighter looked confused. "What is it?"

"It's just, it sounds like a game," I explained. "Simon says touch your toes!"

We all laughed. I could just hear from inside the truck, "Hey, fuck you!"

Jeff looked around. "Alright, so who wants to drive for the next hour?"

"I'll do it," sighed Greg. He climbed down the manhole. After a moment of shuffling, out came Simon. He took Greg's spot.

I leaned back, enjoying the moonlight that occasionally peeked through the tree-tops. I relaxed my muscles. I could get used to this, I thought to myself.

EXT. BASKETBALL COURT – DAY

I dribbled the ball expertly, deking out three of the other team's players. I shot for the net, missed. They picked it up. Coach called a time-out.

He called me over. As soon as I sat down on the bench beside him, he started talking strategies and manoeuvres. After a while he looked me in the eye and said, "All this relies on one thing: Your actually passing to your teammates for once. You've been hogging the ball for too long, and I want to see some teamwork here."

The game resumed. The other team went for the net, but I easily blocked it. Recovering the ball, I headed to the other side of the court. Then I remembered the coach's words. I saw a guy on my team who was wide open. I tossed the ball lightly to him.

The basketball picked up speed mid-air, and then burst into flames. My teammate didn't have a chance. The fire became a flaming demon and sunk its teeth around him. When it was finished, it burned and ate everything else around it, every single person in the court, save for me.

Eventually the flaming monster looked at me, and its disfigured mouth curved into a hideous smile. It pounced.

I woke up. I wasn't on a demon-ravaged basketball court, I was still on the back of the truck. It had stopped. Jeff, Simon, and Greg were all staring at me.

"Who's driving?" I enquired, still groggy from sleep.

"No one. It was getting hard to concentrate with all your screaming."

I grimaced and rolled over. Not these goddamned dreams again… I sat up suddenly. "Wait…why isn't Dr. Sleighter driving? He's deaf, isn't he?"

"He doesn't know how to drive. Sure, develop a hand-held fire bomb, but drive a car? Geez, that's too hard for a little old scientist like him."


	3. Goddamn Nightmares

**Chapter 3 – Goddamn Nightmares**

EXT. FOREST ROAD – NIGHT

"You know what I hate about this truck?"

"What?"

"How slow it is. I mean, if I stood on the top, a smoker could easily just grab me off of it."

"We haven't had that yet."

"I know! We've just being seeing the little guys, and one freakin' Tank."

"And a boomer."

"Yeah. But where are all the hunters, and all the smokers, and all the-"

"Witches?"

"What? Why witches?"

"There's one right there, in the middle of the road."

"Shit!" Simon vaulted over to the roof and shouted obscenities down the manhole, but a resounding thunk could be heard clearly. Followed by a scream. "Shit!" Simon repeated. He grabbed an assault rifle and peered around, looking for the witch. I raised a sniper scope to my eye. The witch's head popped out from under the truck. I aimed the crosshairs, fired, and hit a zombie instead.

I looked up. Somehow the horde had managed to ambush us. I threw down my sniper rifle, picked up an assault rifle, and started firing, not even bothering with the turret in front of me.

Our assault rifles weren't ordinary. The bullets could punch through steel, a clip held 100 bullets, and the gun had a maximum of eight clips. Zombies dropped like flies.

Too bad I forgot about the witch.

She climbed onto the truck and ripped apart my gun with her bare hands. I backed up, realized I was on the edge, and stopped. When faced with a problem like this, there was yet another trick up my sleeve, almost literally. Because each military uniform was outfitted with a long retractable knife under its forearm.

The witch leapt on me. Before her ten claws could rip me to shreds, however, a ten-inch blade was through her skull.

The horde wasn't finished yet. Realizing this, I quickly grabbed another rifle and blasted away the zombies that were clinging to our truck. The man-hole popped open, and Greg peered out. He shot a few zombies that were behind Simon. He reloaded the pistol, then figured out the horde had dissipated.

"Shit, I missed the fun."

"Fun?" I exclaimed, "I almost had my guts used as a carpet."

Greg climbed over and looked at me. He spotted the dead witch. "Oh, geez. We ran her over, didn't we? That's what the bump was?"

"Yeah. It was really mad, but it had no idea who was responsible. I'd be dead if it hadn't had hesitated."

"Well, it's a good thing she did, then."

I tossed the body over the side and watched as it and all the infected we had killed disappeared into the fog. I sat back. Greg jumped over to me and took the other turret.

The truck broke down.

"Fuck!" Jeff poked his head out of the man-hole. "Fuck! Do any of you know what just happened?"

"No idea," Simon replied. "Maybe the engine blew?"

"It's not supposed to blow! It's supposed to withstand getting bombarded by shells! What the hell happened to it?"

I sighed. "Let's go check."

We all got off the truck and circled it, looking for damages. There were none, not even scuffmarks where the zombies had climbed up. The witch had scratched the paint, though, but we didn't pay attention to that. Greg opened the hood and started cranking something. I went over to see what he was doing.

He closed the lid and sealed it shut. "There's nothing wrong with the engine."

"Well, what do we do?"

"It's getting late, we can set up camp here and think about it in the morning."

"You sure that's the best plan?"

"We're all pretty tired."

"I'm not fucking tired!" Simon called out.

"Well, you've got first watch then."

Dr. Sleighter emerged from our Tank with a tent bag. In a few minutes, we had a large tent and five sleeping bags. Jeff rolled his eyes. "You're gonna sleep outside on the ground? I'm sleeping in ol' Tanker here. It's a lot safer."

Sleighter replied in his fractured Russian accent, "Not much space in there."

"That's just because of all your goddamn equipment."

"Touch anything and die."

"I could break your spine with a toothpick if I wanted to."

Jeff stalked off and climbed up and into the truck.

"Hey, Simon, you in the Tank or the tent?" asked Greg.

"Tent, probably. More comfortable."

"You've got first watch."

"Shit. Yeah, you told me already." Simon assembled a folding chair and placed himself in front of the tent doorway.

The sun had been set for at least an hour. Greg, Sleighter, and I climbed into our sleeping bags.

There was an awkward silence.

"You asleep?" I asked.

Greg turned over. "What the hell- this ain't a goddamn slumber party."

"Yeah, I know."

"Of course I'm not asleep."

"What's your story?"

"Huh?"

"Everyone's got a story. I've known you for two weeks. What's your story?"

I couldn't see him, but I could hear him turn over again. There was a long silence. I was about to give up and go to sleep, but then he talked.

"The first kiss I ever had was in first year high school. I was at a masked dance, and the prettiest girl I knew was standing around with her friends, laughing and having fun. Knowing she couldn't see who I was, I went up to her and kissed her. She was shocked, but eventually gave in. After a few moments, however, she suddenly stopped, pulled back, and lifted up my mask."

"…and?"

"…and she turned away in disgust."

"That's too bad."

"Shut up. Anyway, over the next three years, I worked hard not only in school, as I was used to, but also in losing weight, working out, and getting a job. I never really succeeded at the last one. Really, the most profound moment was when I was leaving the school after exams. I see her, sitting alone, no longer the popular girl she once was years ago. She had nearly failed a grade, and subsequently had worked as hard as she could over the last year, but it was obvious she wasn't prepared for the exam. Seeing the girl that had rejected me like that should have filled me with satisfaction, but it didn't. I went up to her, sat beside her, and kissed her again before she could look at me."

"…and she left in disgust again?"

"I said shut up. This time, she opened her eyes, recognized me, and for a moment I thought there would be a repeat. But she just closed her eyes again and leaned closer. I later married her."

"That's a nice story."

"She died, a few days after the first infection. Despite my reassurances, she knew she wasn't going to make it. She asked me to pick her up, kiss her again. I did, and she died in my arms, and became a zombie, and I killed her."

I said nothing.

Neither did Greg.

We both turned over and fell asleep.


End file.
